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Sharp Right Turn Feed

Over the last year, Randall Hoven at American Thinker has been putting out a “Graph of the Day” piece. Each graph has generally been constructed from neutral data and each has demonstrated the failures of our government and the effect on our economy, defense, and more.

Today, Hoven summarizes what we have learned from those graphs and it is not a pretty picture for America…much less for Obamabots and those touting the brilliance of the “progressive’ agenda.

Government has grown by obscene amounts since William McKinley was president. In 1900, federal, state, and local governments combined spent under 5% of Gross Domestic Product. Today they spend 40% of GDP or more and account for half of all health care spending.

The federal government alone spends more than 20% of GDP, owns 29% of all land, and controls virtually all ocean activity, including oil drilling, for miles offshore.

This puts us square into the mix of European welfare states in terms of government spending and debt.

Federal government debt is on an unsustainable path, set to grow beyond 100% of GDP soon, and driven mostly by increased spending on Medicare and Medicaid. (And notdefense.)

He asked for the second half ($350B) of TARP bailout money even before he was inaugurated. (He also voted for the TARP bailout while in the Senate.) Then, as president, he went on to buy car companies with it.

“Pay as you go” went out the window, as Obama’s plans would explode the deficits, even in the years after the current recession was assumed over. He signed a “stimulus” bill within one month of being sworn into office, adding $814B to the 2009-2019 deficit in one fell swoop.

His crowning achievement was the trillion-dollar overhaul of all health care in the nation under a byzantine system of additional costs, additional taxes, and additional bureaucracy. The legislators who “wrote” the bill did not even read it. Estimates of its cost cannot be trusted.

Obama’s very own chief of the Council of Economic Advisors, Christina Romer, demonstrated in academic studies that federal spending did not end the Great Depression or any post-war recession and that tax increases have significant and negative impacts on economic growth.

The U.S. leads the world in recoverable fossil fuel resources, which are enough to last many more decades at least.

“Renewable” energy resources, other than hydroelectric dams, supply less than 5% of all energy in the U.S., even after years of government-funded research, incentives, regulations, and subsidies. Fossil fuels, nuclear, and hydroelectric will dominate for decades to come.

The most economical source of electricity for some time to come is natural gas. The most expensive is solar panels.

Contra Bill Maher, Brazil is not exactly some outstanding example of bio-fuel generation or energy conservation we need to follow.

“Clean coal” is no panacea. It costs 27% to 83% more, uses 73% to 100% more water resources, and is technologically immature and uncertain. All that, just to use less of what all animals on earth exhale and all plants on earth inhale.

Not to put too fine a point on it: liberals have been wrong about almost everything, and conservatives have been right about almost everything, at least in my lifetime (half a century). That goes not only for the economy, the role of government, and climate change, but also for many “social issues” as well.